Father Son Relationship

Words: 1906
Pages: 8

In today’s society, a father-son relationship is expected; it is seen as a given, but it is not always or was not always expected to be a life saving tool. For a young, jewish boy named Elie however, his relationship with his father represented exactly that: a life saving tool. In Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night, the importance of a father-son relationship was evidently demonstrated by many father-son pairs, as well as other pairs outside of Night as being vital for survival. Vital father-son relationships were shown by Chlomo (Elie’s father) and Elie, the other fathers and sons seen by Elie during the Holocaust, and more instances of father-son capability at other times in the world. A father-son relationship should not be taken for granted since …show more content…
For starters, one of the many liaisons was the father and son seen in the cattle car near the end of the memoir. An old man in the cattle car was thrown a piece of bread by a by standing german. He decided he wanted to share the bread with his son but his son did not want just a little morsel, but the whole piece. The son attacked his father, his father yelling, “‘…Meir! Don’t you recognize me…You’re killing your father…’” (Wiesel 101). The son killed the father but then he himself was killed by other men wanting the bread because he then had no one to protect him. If the son had not killed his father, he would have had his father to protect him. This once again shows how a father-son bond is significant to continuance. Another major instance in which a father-son relationship — no matter how far apart it may have stretched — was vital for existence was how Stein (Elie’s relative from Antwerp) kept telling Elie during the rough times that, “‘The only thing that keeps me alive…is to know that Riezel and the little ones are still alive’” (Wiesel 45). This demonstrated in black and white that Stein’s two boys, with the addition of his wife, were the soul attribute keeping this man’s two legs on planet Earth. One other instance of another crucial father-son relationship was a unique relationship between Akiba Drumer and God. Akiba was very faithful to God. God was supposed to protect and save the Jewish people and to Akiba, he was like a father to him because he had not a father or any other relationships in the camps. After realizing that the jewish people would not survive, he lost all faith in God and ended up being picked out during the selection. Elie saw all of this and thought to himself, “Poor Akiba Drumer, if only he could have kept his faith in God… he would not have been swept away by the selection” (Wiesel 77). The absence of Akiba’s father-son relationship with